A look at the finance professional of 2035
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
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What happens when artificial intelligence can autonomously manage the finance function? Will it be the end of the finance professional as we know it? The answer is “Yes!”. That’s probably scary to some, but it may not be as bad as you think. Let’s break that down.?
What’s important to the younger part of the workforce today? Making an impact. Do most finance professionals feel like they’re making a difference today? Too often, that’s not the case. Instead, they feel overwhelmed by busy work and barely have time to complete their finance processes. Having time to spend with business leaders? That’s slim to none.?
AI will first free time for all the activities we’d love to do but don’t find time for. That means we can realize the ambition of the “lights-out finance function”, as Deloitte termed it. Instead, we can spend time with business leaders working on their critical priorities, generating value for the company. That means we’ll significantly elevate our impact. How can that be anything but a good thing??
While this is good, it doesn’t mean it comes without challenges. We need to develop new skills to fulfill this new-look role of problem-solving businesspeople armed with data-driven insights. This week’s blog will explore the skills most finance professionals need in 2035.?
It’s all about the human skills
The relevant skills for finance professionals to develop towards 2035 are those that AI struggles to mimic. Naturally, this is a race against time as AI continues developing in new areas, so we must constantly be a few steps ahead. This is difficult and requires constant awareness of AI capabilities, a serious growth mindset, and a willingness to learn new things continually. Finance professionals have historically struggled with these things, but now there’s no way around them.?
When we formulated the vision for the finance function in 2035 , we also considered the relevant skills to develop. Here’s a re-look at the list.
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1. Technology use and development
2. Technology design and programming
3. Resilience and stress management
4. Complex problem solving
5. Leadership and social influence
6. Critical thinking
7. Creativity, originality, and innovation
8. Active learning
9. Analytical thinking
10. Reasoning and ideation
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The two first skills on the list relate to developing and deploying technology, which will remain relevant for finance professionals. The other eight relate to human skills that AI still struggles to mimic or can only do at a relatively basic level.?
Let’s review each skill and discuss how it will be relevant to finance professionals in 2035.
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Technology development and deployment?
We will review the first two under one heading since they’re closely linked. It doesn't mean you're done because you have digitized or automated a process. Going from digitalization to automation is one step. Going from slow and error-prone automation to faster and higher-quality automation is another step. Constantly improving your automation efforts while implementing new rules and regulations is a third step. Technology is far from a one-and-done thing, so you’ll need finance professionals who can drive the continuous technological development of the finance function in 2035.
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Resilience and stress management?
Living in a world undergoing constant change will freak most people out at one point or another. This challenge has just elevated a nudge or two in Finance because many of our tasks are highly automatable. Hence, instead of feeling ahead of the curve and valued employees, we constantly feel targeted and at risk of losing our jobs.?
Naturally, this is challenging for anyone to live through, but it's a given. That’s why we need to enhance our resiliency and stress management capabilities. We should embrace a “challenge accepted” mindset, where we’re excited about the continuous development of our function and the opportunities it gives us to play new roles.
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Complex problem solving?
Ask ChatGPT to give you a solution to a specific problem. It will provide you with a few different generic solution options. Feed ChatGPT with your particular context, and it’ll give you some more relevant solution options; however, it still has a pretty generic approach. No matter what your problem is, ChatGPT will not give you a solution that’s specifically designed to address your problem, with your exact root causes and your exact resources and staffing. Only you and the people you work with can do this.?
That’s why companies need finance professionals to engage in complex problem-solving. They need you to bring your unique perspective and insights into the process. You may even be asked to facilitate the problem-solving process to ensure the best possible solution is found. Please don’t wait for ChatGPT to do this for you, but go out and develop the skills to do it today!
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Leadership and social influence?
Have you tried to convince people to do something specific? Have you tried to get them to agree, but nothing happened afterward? We’ve probably all tried this and been left to wonder why we didn’t get the impact we were looking for.?
It concerns our lack of influencing skills and the fact that no one leads the way through execution. Finance professionals have just started to develop these skills in recent years, and we have much catching up to do. In addition, many finance professionals have believed that their job was done when a decision was made. Or, as one finance leader stated recently, in one of the training programs we run, “the job is not done when the Excel model is done.”?
No, we need to be close to execution and positively follow up on decisions made and the impact they create. As soon as we realize we’re not getting the intended impact, we need to raise it and act to get things back on track or take different actions. This requires leadership skills.
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Critical thinking?
This is a skill that’s probably difficult for most to describe succinctly. It’s the simple skill of separating what’s important from what’s not. It’s deploying your time and efforts to where you can make the most significant impact and helping others do the same. It’s also an ability to quickly pick up on issues in meetings and discussions and move along an agenda. This may sound fluffy, but it can significantly enhance your impact and make you much more efficient.
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Creativity, originality, and innovation
You’ve probably heard the famous quote by Charles H. Duell, the commissioner of the US Patent Office, who in 1889 said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” This is probably one of the most significant misstatements of all time. Stating it today would be just as misleading. Simply because we cannot imagine more things being invented, it doesn’t mean they won’t.?
You could translate this idea into the corporate world as well. It would be applicable across all functions and departments. For finance professionals, it would be relevant when we hear statements like “We did it before, and it didn’t work,” or “Our customers won’t buy,” etc. This shouldn’t prevent us from sharing insights and suggesting actions even if they have been offered before. Circumstances change, and new solutions need to be explored. We may not be the only ones carrying this torch, but we should hold it, too!
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Active learning?
This one almost goes without saying. We must constantly learn new things and push others to do the same to stay ahead. A day you don’t learn is a day AI gets one step closer to making you irrelevant.
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Analytical thinking?
Of all the skills mentioned here, this is probably the one that AI can most easily mimic. However, AI may not always be around to ask when we discuss specific topics. If a new idea gets thrown on the table, you must quickly analyze the pros and cons and share an opinion. This is often what we’re there for, and for that, we need analytical thinking.
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Reasoning and ideation?
These are sub-elements of many other skills and are highly useful in influencing and problem-solving. Our ability to use logic in our reasoning will often be a valued trait in business discussions, so we should continue to develop this skill. As for ideation, we shouldn’t feel pressured to create the next big idea. However, we should be ready to catch it when someone brings it up or be prepared to facilitate the ideation process whenever needed.?
A tall order for finance professionals?
Your head may be on the brink of an explosion right now. How can you meaningfully develop all these skills and remain relevant in 2035? The good news is that you have more than ten years to do so. The challenge is that many of these are likely outside your comfort zone today. As with any tall order we need to climb, it can be helpful to break it down into pieces.?
Identify which skills you’re stronger today and start developing as a spike. Then, use it to drive impact in your job and get some early successes. Use these successes to fuel your efforts to learn the following skills. Be specific about which use cases you can practice the skills in. Otherwise, you won’t be able to learn them meaningfully.?
Over time, you will have developed enough of these skills to remain relevant in 2035 and beyond. Take the first step today, and you’ll be fine. Are you concerned about whether you will be relevant as a finance professional in 2035? Which of these skills do you feel you’re strongest in today? And which skill(s) do you plan on developing next?
This was the seventh article in our new series, "Finance 2035 - what Finance will look like a decade from now". Find the previous one(s) below. Remember to subscribe to be notified when we publish future articles.
You can catch our previous series, "Hacking the Annual Wheel in Finance." below.
If you want more trends in finance and accounting, you can read our previous series, "The Top 10 Priorities for CFOs in 2024." This series explored what critical issues CFOs should focus on in 2024.
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Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder and a partner at Business Partnering Institute and the owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn, which has more than 12,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk . I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner ”, a long-time Finance Blogger, a LinkedIn Learning instructor , and a Top Voice on LinkedIn with 375,000+ followers.
Precision Accountant | Helping Businesses Navigate the Complex World of Finance
1 个月Active learning is essential because it encompasses every other skill and keeps you up to speed on what's important.
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1 个月Very informative
--Logistics/Marketing Intern
1 个月Love this
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2 个月11
Internal Consultant to the Central Bank of Nigeria at SOFOMAX CONSULTING NIG. LTD
2 个月Insightful